


but the most special are the most lonely

by blackwood (transjon)



Series: they keep trying to row away [7]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Archivist Sasha James, Breakfast, Domestic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Worth Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:35:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24116635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transjon/pseuds/blackwood
Summary: Jon thinks about paintings in museums, and then he thinks about the sound of the violins. “Sibelius,” he says, so that he doesn’t start thinking about Elias with his hands on the neck of a delicate, beautiful violin again.“Symphony number five,” Sasha agrees. “Please tell me you understand that you were not complicit or to blame.”–it's not really about the fruit, or the eggs, or the music.
Series: they keep trying to row away [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1735714
Comments: 30
Kudos: 342





	but the most special are the most lonely

**Author's Note:**

> title is ONCE AGAIN from all the rowboats by regina spektor
> 
> this doesn't really have a good ao3 tag but there is internalized victim blaming typical to being freshly removed from an actively traumatic situation, and some light self harming behavior.
> 
> this will make NO sense if you dont read at least the first fic in the series and the one right before this, but tldr elias turns jon into a merperson of sorts and keeps him as a piece of sentient decoration basically, and the archives gang rescues him eventually, also sasha is the archivist, also, timelines ??? i know fuckall abt them 
> 
> i feel obligated to once again thank the gang for ever coming up w this idea in the first place im having a Grat Tim

In Elias’ library, in the tank filled with salt water, the sound of violins had sounded just that – violent. In Sasha’s house Jon wakes up half covered in sleeping bodies, with the sound of classical music drifting in through the cracked door. 

It takes him a few long seconds to remember where he is – it always does; he never remembers, at first, and every time he takes a breath through his nose upon waking up he thinks for a moment he’s dying; that he’s about to taste the sharp metal of blood from the raw air rubbing his tender, delicate skin open where the slits on the sides of his neck open and close in search for oxygen. 

It’s been a few weeks. He might have been in that tank for a long, long time, but before that he had his lungs for much longer. He’s been human for a long time. He tells himself this, every morning, every day. He knows it. It’s just that –

It’s –

There’s the sound of classical music, and the sound of hot oil, and the smell of eggs. Jon’s sense of smell has never been better, he thinks. There’s the feeling of heavy bodies, as well, Martin’s soft belly resting against his side, and Tim’s arm under Jon’s head. 

He should probably want to be alone, to not be touched so much – he’s used to being alone, after all. Surely this should be overstimulating, or make him feel rubbed raw, like wearing clothes had, at first. His skin oversensitive and covered in – in _feelings_ and _sensations_. 

As it is, he feels like he can’t get enough of this contact. 

He detangles himself from the others anyway. Martin’s eyes crack open a little bit, just for a second, and then close again. Trusting, Jon thinks, how he didn’t even stay awake to see what Jon was going to do next. He wants to be that trusting. He’s not quite there yet.

He makes his way to the kitchen painstakingly – slowly, slowly, shins aching, the pressure of his body on his feet heavier than he remembers it being. His legs are still a foreign thing, although the more he walks the more they feel _his_ again. For now though he keeps having to lean against the wall to support himself as he walks. He keeps having to stop to rest. It’s hard work, but it’s alright, he thinks. Better than –

Well.

And he’s seen the way Tim looks at him, when he does that – walks with a hand on the wall to help him hold himself upright. He’d thought it was pity, at first, and bristled, hard, wanted to bare his teeth and growl at him for it. It probably is, partially, but later they’d told him about what had happened at the institute – the worms, the physical therapy – how Tim’d been hit hard, how it had taken weeks for him to be able to walk normally again. Even still, knowing that he gets it, it feels weird to be so cared about. For people to feel pity for him, or sympathy, or – 

For people to feel positive emotions for him, or to reach out to touch him for purposes other than hurting him. 

(Once, Tim had approached him while he’d been resting on his way to the bathroom, leaning heavily against the wall, eyes closed. He had moved too fast, too unexpectedly, hands extended towards him, reaching for his shoulders, and on an instinct Jon had lunged at him. His blunt human teeth had closed around Tim’s hand faster than he could process what was happening at all. He hadn’t hurt him, not really, but it’d been the feral animalistic impulse of it (the satisfaction – the feeling of his teeth closing around flesh – the act of defending himself, finally) that’d made him back away slowly, and then as fast as his shaky legs would allow him when Sasha had finally gotten him to let go, after what could've been seconds or maybe minutes. 

“Maybe he made me into an animal,” he’d whispered later, after they’d coaxed him out from under the bed where he’d dived, like a scared cat. Martin, petting over his back gingerly (oh, and how he’d hated that – how he’d wanted him to touch him with purpose; with intent; he’d wanted so selfishly to be held and touched all over, but he couldn’t ask – not then, not now – maybe not ever) had stilled, hand twitching over the fabric of his shirt.

“He didn’t,” Martin’d told him, patient as ever. “Tim scared you.”

“Have you ever bitten someone because they scared you?” Jon’d spat out, his own body twitching and shaking. “No – have you ever bitten someone and refused to let go until someone physically dragged you away?”

Martin had gone quiet, then. Jon’d expected him to take his hand away – and he would’ve deserved it – he never deserved his affection to begin with – but he’d just returned to tracing the slow, big circles he’d been drawing all over his back with his broad, warm hand.)

And speaking of good things, of positive emotions –

The kitchen, too, smells like eggs. 

“Hey,” Sasha says immediately as soon as she notices him there in the doorway, “didn’t think you were awake yet. Did I wake you?”

Jon shakes his head, and then, thinking better of it, opens his mouth, moves his jaw with the movement of it. “No,” he says tentatively. It feels okay, so he keeps talking. “I just woke up.”

“The others are still asleep?” she asks, takes a few towards him. She’s hovering, a little, hands fluttering at her sides like she wants to reach out and touch him. Jon nods, fumbles for the back of the nearest chair to pull it out from under the table, and Sasha, seemingly jolting back to the moment, returns to the stove. Without looking, she flips an egg over (gross, Jon thinks – all firm, rubbery yolks –), and hums softly.

Jon sits down carefully. Through the portable speaker the classical music keeps playing. Jon thinks he knows the name of the piece. It might come to him, later. If it doesn’t he’ll ask Sasha.

“Up early,” he says, and then cringes at the way the sound feels coming up his throat. 

Speaking doesn’t hurt, per se, it’s just – it’s been a long time. It’s like there’s a mental block, sometimes, an invisible string stitching his throat closed, like there’s no gap for his words to slip through. It’s easier if he rations them. Two words are easier to get out than three, and three are easier than five, and so on. 

“Couldn’t sleep,” Sasha says. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice me getting out of bed. I think I woke Tim up.”

“Oh,” Jon says. “You woke _Tim_ up?”

“Maybe,” she says sheepishly. “His eyes opened a little bit.”

Jon thinks back to Martin’s half-lidded eyes falling shut again, and imagines Tim doing the same. He hadn’t when Jon’d moved his arm so that he could get out. He nods, and Sasha nods back, a slow smile on her lips.

So – on the table there is a bowl full of fruit, and Tim’s flat keys, and Martin’s flat keys, and Sasha’s flat keys. Jon thinks about trust, again, in the act of leaving the very means of getting back into your home in the open sight of other people, in a place where it can be taken away from you. It fills him with anxiety, chilling and bone deep, and he tears his gaze away from them. Apples, then. Green and red. Bananas. A few bruised, sad-looking kiwi fruits. Jon pokes one of them in the side to test the give of the flesh. 

“They can go in the bin,” Sasha says, “I’ve been meaning to toss them for a few days now.”

“I’ll eat them,” Jon says before he can stop himself. 

Sasha turns to face him properly. “Do you actually want to?”

Jon shrugs. The thought of sweet, sour fruit flesh is filling his mouth with saliva now that he actually thinks about it, although these particular kiwis do look and feel like biting into them would be less satisfying than he’s fantasizing it would be. 

“I’ll cut one up for you right now if you want.”

“I can hold a knife myself –”

“I know.”

She doesn’t sound pitying, or upset, or condescending. Just matter of fact. Like she knows it, and wants to do it anyway, just because. Jon looks away.

“Can I do it myself,” he whispers. It’s not really a question. He can see Sasha tense in his peripheral vision, relax again, as though through willpower alone. 

“Of course,” she says finally. “Give me a second.”

She looks through the cupboard for the knife, and the cutting board, and a dessert spoon. Jon takes them one by one, sets them on the table (cutting board, knife, spoon, and then finally the kiwi), and then he just looks at them for a while. Sasha, back at the stove, carefully moves the eggs to a large dinner plate, and then adds three more eggs to the frying pan.

Jon cuts the kiwi in half. The flesh inside isn’t as bad as he thought – a little bruised, but a good vibrant green otherwise. The spoon sinks in between the skin and the flesh (like a scalpel – and he stops there, a violent shudder starting at the base of his skull –) easy enough, and when the spoon clinks against his teeth on its way in he jolts back only a little. 

And –

It’s been so long since he had fruit. He’s had meat – and cooked fish – and vegetables – and they’ve all been an electric spark down his spine to sink his teeth into for the first time in so long. Fruit isn’t any different. It’s taking a lot out of him to not bury his face in the fruit, swallow it whole, sink his teeth around the flesh of it on all sides and rip it out of its skin. He’s managing. 

Sasha comes to sit in the chair opposite from his. Her face is soft in the artificial light, hair sticking out in every direction around her face, and Jon looks away, suddenly overcome with emotion. It’s an emotion he doesn’t know how to categorize, and right now all he wants to do is categorize and organize and know. He pushes the thought out of his head for the second. That, too, is organizing, he tells himself. Sorting it for later.

What comes out of his mouth when he attempts to make small talk is –

“All I needed was to just, want to stop, huh? Tell myself to make my body go back to what it was.”

They’ve been through this before. Most of that day is a blur, honestly – he’s had to have someone recount it to him several times. All of them, actually – Tim twice, Sasha at least four times already. He remembers sensations, and emotions, and the fact that he was broken, and then he was broken in a different way. There were other things, sure. He doesn’t remember many of them. 

“Right,” Sasha says. Her tone is what Jon would describe as carefully neutral. He plays with the hem of the oversized sweater he’s been wearing for the past fifteen hours (he’s terrified if he takes it off it’ll be taken away from him – that he’ll take it off, and he’ll have to give it back, and he’ll never see it again – that it’ll become too scratchy to bear – that it’ll hurt and he’ll have to take it off and then he’ll be scared and vulnerable and cold –) and worries his lip between his teeth. 

“Then –”

“Jon,” Sasha interrupts him. The crescendo of the forgotten classical piece rises in the background. Sibelius, Jon suddenly realizes. He knows the name of the piece, too. He can’t get a grasp of that memory, yet. He focuses on the smell of the eggs, gradually burning on the bottom a few feet away. “You couldn’t have known that.”

“You didn’t say I needed to know.”

“No, I didn’t,” she agrees. 

They’re quiet again. Jon’s fingers go to his wrist, nails first, and when the sharp point of them digs into the soft skin there Sasha gently places her palm over the back of Jon’s hand. He pulls his nails out and lays his hand flat across his wrist, instead, feeling strangely chastised. 

“Maybe if I’d just wanted more I wouldn’t have been there for – for so long,” he says. He never remembers how long it was. He thinks it’s one of the things that he’s going to fixate on for the rest of his life, eventually, but that he for the moment can’t make himself retain and remember. Sasha’s hand closes around his, then, and she doesn’t let go when she speaks. 

“It wasn’t your fault.” Jon’s mouth opens to protest, but Sasha’s grip tightens until his skin turns unnaturally white under her fingers. “I mean it, Jon. It’s not about not wanting enough. It just doesn’t work like that. I _Know_ how you felt and what you did and what he –” and she falters, here, takes a very long breath, “you needed someone.”

“Your eggs are burning,” he says quietly. 

“Screw the eggs,” Sasha says sharply, “I don’t care. You didn’t do anything wrong, Jon, and it’s okay if that’s too much for you to believe right now, and I understand why you feel the way you do but you’re _wrong._ Okay?”

Jon disagrees but he nods anyway. “Right.”

Sasha looks at him with her sharp, sharp eyes, her soft face, her sleep-messy hair. Jon thinks about paintings in museums, and then he thinks about the sound of the violins. “Sibelius,” he says, so that he doesn’t start thinking about Elias with his hands on the neck of a delicate, beautiful violin again.

“Symphony number five,” Sasha agrees. “Please tell me you understand that you were not complicit or to blame.”

“I can’t,” he says. He picks up the other half of the kiwi. “I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” she says. “Eventually, okay?”

Jon nods obediently. For now, he’s alright to roll the possibility of some day reconsidering it in his mouth like a smooth rock, careful not to swallow it but content enough to keep it there. He has fruit in his mouth, again. Sasha gets up and unceremoniously dumps the eggs she’s got in the frying pan onto the plate with the ones already on it. No dense, rubbery yolks this time, but the bottoms are charcoal. Jon sucks on the spoon, gently, and thinks about the texture of fried egg between his teeth. Firm and solid and chewy and crunchy and gooey. Salt and pepper, he thinks. Maybe chili flakes.

“How many eggs?” Sasha asks him. 

Jon looks at her, again, and the eye contact makes him feel vulnerable, and open, and cared for. It’s a strange feeling. It’s a scary feeling. He looks a little to the side of her face.

“Two,” he says. 

“Okay,” Sasha says, and breaks two eggs over the still hot frying pan. “I’ll leave the yolks runny.”

How strange it is to ask for something and receive it. How strange it is to be promised something and receive it. How strange –

In the background, the song slowly fades out and the next one starts. The microwave clock reads eight in the morning. Jon taps the dessert spoon against the smooth metal of the knife blade and thinks, one egg. Two eggs. How many eggs does he want? Two eggs. Sasha’s making him two eggs. If he wants more she’ll make him more. This piece doesn’t have violins, at least not yet, although there probably will be, in a few minutes. He thinks there might be more bread, somewhere on the counter. He thinks about cutting a piece from a loaf of bread with a violin string. He doesn’t shudder at the thought.


End file.
